Best of both worlds

THE running theme in Mark Elder's second full season with the Hallé has been music associated with world wars and the Russian Revolution, all under the Nietzsche-derived heading of Scattered Sparks. This has already made for some exciting programmes. But it was always likely that Britten's War Requiem, performed on Armistice Sunday, would be a special highlight. And so it proved.

Ambitious choral / orchestral works fare well under Elder's direction. He exudes authority and a structural command that persuade large cohorts of musicians to go with him. These are qualities his predecessor Kent Nagano rarely displayed. Yet he has not sacrificed Nagano's care for detail. So audiences are currently getting the best of both worlds, and there is an exhilarating sense of the orchestra's full potential at last being tapped.

From the shuffling tread of the Requiem Aeternam, through to the visionary glow of Britten's conclusion, there was tremendous unanimity of purpose in the playing. And in the more intimate Wilfred Owen settings that Britten intersperses between the Latin verses of the Requiem Mass, everything was alert and shapely.

If there was a limitation, it was in the singing. Not that the combined Hallé Choir and Leeds Festival Chorus were ever less than sensitive and whole-hearted; but their impressive-looking ranks failed to raise the roof in the great Verdian climaxes of the Dies Irae and the Libera Me. The Manchester Boys Choir made incisive contributions in their off-stage choruses.

As for the soloists, Britten's own recording with Peter Pears, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Galina Vishnevskaya has spoiled us all. There was abundant sincerity from Elder's soloists, but it was hard not to crave a more overwhelming soprano than Amanda Roocroft's, or a more colourful and floated lyrical tenor than Paul Nilon's. Though Peter Coleman-Wright's baritone was tonally pleasing, he could have brought more passion to crucial turning points, as when Abraham slays his son "And half the seed of Europe, one by one".

Still, there is much to be said for not emulating Fischer-Dieskau's more hectoring manner, and Coleman-Wright gave a restrained rendition of his final lines, "I am the enemy you killed, my friend . . .", leading a high-quality performance to a moving conclusion.